Flexible electronics have attracted significant academic and commercial attention in recent years as a result of their potential to revolutionize the interaction between humans and electronic devices. This paradigm shifting technology provides the opportunity to create energy-efficient products that are lightweight, ultrathin, and rugged. It provides further opportunities to create very large area electronics with the ability to flex, curve, conform, and roll. Currently, flexible electronics technology is being actively developed for applications in flexible flat panel display manufacturing, flexible semiconductor manufacturing, flexible electronic manufacturing/processing, flexible solar manufacturing, flexible sensor manufacturing. As a result, a rapidly increasing demand exists for high performance, highly compact and portable devices and methods of high-throughput manufacturing for such devices.
Despite high demand, there are major technological barriers that currently hinder the widespread integration of flexible electronics. One of the most fundamental challenges is how to process systems on a malleable substrate. In order to address this challenge, bonding a flexible substrate to a rigid carrier is a method that allows flexible substrates to be processed in standard toolsets with little or no modification. However, a need exists in the art to develop a process that accommodates thermal expansion and stress mismatches when bonding flexible substrates to carriers.
For simplicity and clarity of illustration, the drawing figures illustrate the general manner of construction, and descriptions and details of well-known features and techniques may be omitted to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the invention. Additionally, elements in the drawing figures are not necessarily drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention. The same reference numerals in different figures denote the same elements.
The terms “first,” “second,” “third,” “fourth,” and the like in the description and in the claims, if any, are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order. It is to be understood that the terms so used are interchangeable under appropriate circumstances such that the embodiments described herein are, for example, capable of operation in sequences other than those illustrated or otherwise described herein. Furthermore, the terms “include,” and “have,” and any variations thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, system, article, device, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to those elements, but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, system, article, device, or apparatus.
The terms “left,” “right,” “front,” “back,” “top,” “bottom,” “over,” “under,” and the like in the description and in the claims, if any, are used for descriptive purposes and not necessarily for describing permanent relative positions. It is to be understood that the terms so used are interchangeable under appropriate circumstances such that the embodiments of the invention described herein are, for example, capable of operation in other orientations than those illustrated or otherwise described herein.
The terms “couple,” “coupled,” “couples,” “coupling,” and the like should be broadly understood and refer to connecting two or more elements or signals, electrically, mechanically and/or otherwise. Two or more electrical elements may be electrically coupled but not be mechanically or otherwise coupled; two or more mechanical elements may be mechanically coupled, but not be electrically or otherwise coupled; two or more electrical elements may be mechanically coupled, but not be electrically or otherwise coupled. Coupling may be for any length of time, e.g., permanent or semi-permanent or only for an instant.
“Electrical coupling” and the like should be broadly understood and include coupling involving any electrical signal, whether a power signal, a data signal, and/or other types or combinations of electrical signals. “Mechanical coupling” and the like should be broadly understood and include mechanical coupling of all types.
The absence of the word “removably,” “removable,” and the like near the word “bonded” or “coupled,” and the like does not mean that the bonding or coupling, etc. in question is or is not removable. For example, the recitation of a flexible substrate being bonded to a carrier substrate does not mean that the flexible substrate cannot be removed (readily or otherwise) from, or that it is permanently connected to, the carrier substrate.